case study

Scotch & Soda’s key driver for growth

How their app beats any other digital channel

Scotch & Soda, the Amsterdam-based fashion brand, celebrates its 3rd anniversary on the Highstreet Mobile platform this month. In these 3 years the app not only enriched millions of shopping experiences, but also became Scotch & Soda’s key driver for revenue growth. Happy birthday, Scotch!

Back in the days, when mobile became King

For more than 30 years, Scotch & Soda has been an innovator in the fashion world and renowned for being on the cutting edge. When the time came to do the same in e-commerce, the brand experienced the inevitable drop off in sales as consumers gradually shifted from desktop to mobile. Scotch & Soda decided to create te best possible mobile website. But having done so, the brand still noticed the business critical drop in conversions when comparing both channels. Mobile visitors converted at half the rate.

This gap in revenue was something they needed a quick, effective and adaptable solution for. They had heard of other retailers successfully adopting a mobile app strategy and decided to explore their options. Rather than custom build – which they realised would take long and required highly specialised design and engineering skills – they chose for a platform that offered Scotch an on-brand experience out-of-the-box: the Highstreet Mobile platform.

The app as Digital Flagship store

Thanks to Highstreet’s platform technology, the app was developed and launched in less than three months after Scotch & Soda signed on as a client. Highstreet aligned neatly with the existing Scotch & Soda technology landscape and released the app with a broad range of out-of-the-box features and world-class design. It didn’t take long before the results blew Scotch & Soda away. Soon after release the brand saw that once people downloaded the the app, they came back more often, viewed more products and bought much more products than if they would have stayed in the traditional digital channels.

"Our app users soon became our biggest brand advocates. For Scotch & Soda the app is the perfect channel to offer our fans early access to new collections, sale items and other special perks.

Wim van ZijlGlobal e-commerce Manager Scotch & Soda

Three years later

In February 2016 the Scotch & Soda app was released on the Highstreet platform. From the very first day until now the app has generated exciting results, including:

– Conversion rates are beating any other digital channel: the app gets more than twice the desktop conversion and more than 5 times the mobile web conversion.

– In 2018 more than a third of the app users placed an order. That’s 6 times higher than mobile and tablet users on the website.

– Besides being the best at converting users, the users of the app also spend almost 5 times as much money as tablet and mobile web users.

App has by far the highest conversion rates

App beats desktop conversion every month. Mobile web by 579%

Due to confidentiality, conversion rates are indexed. Actual conversion rates may be much higher or lower.

As a result of this, the revenue of the Scotch & Soda mobile channel is growing 30%-40% since launch and the mobile revenue gap they experienced 3 years ago is closed. These are numbers that Wim van Zijl never expected when they started working with our platform.

“Highstreet has brought tremendous value to our business and taken the pain out of app development by managing the technology for us (...) and do so with the highest UX standards. This results in very happy Scotch customers. Our 4.8 stars and thousands of reviews in the app stores are a testament to that.”

Wim van ZijlGlobal e-commerce Manager Scotch & Soda

The best is yet to come

And there is so much more potential. With an average rating of 4.8 stars (out of 5) the app is highly popular and after three years the customer base of the app is still growing 40% year-on-year. Scotch & Soda thus keeps getting more customers in their best converting channel and as a result the app revenue grows steadily since launch. At the same time the Highstreet team is continuously refining the app experience, testing optimal customer journeys and adding exciting new features to keep the Scotch app at the forefront of mobile technology.

Steady revenue growth since launch

After three years, still 40% y/y revenue growth in December 2018

Lastly, in December 2018 the Scotch team started to launch app exclusive campaigns to get more of their fans to discover the app. By moving more customer to their app, Scotch sees their revenue grow.

By going with a high quality native app already in 2016, Scotch now has a very significant customer base using the app. This new channel beats all other digital channels in terms of conversion rates and engagement. Ultimately, what Scotch has done is putting their brand in the pocket of their customers and offering them a way to stay close to their favourite brand. At Highstreet we could not be more happy with a fantastic global brand like Scotch & Soda that gets such great results using our platform. We’re very proud to call them our customer and we’re looking forward to the next 3 years!

Download the Scotch & Soda app

The best experience for your best customers. The Scotch & Soda app has an average rating of 4.8 stars. Download the app for iOS or Android and see for yourself.

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